This issue is named after Elizabeth Maria Tall Chief (Osage) who is considered to be America’s first prima ballerina. She was born and raised on the Osage Nation in Fairfax, Oklahoma, but also grew up in Beverly Hills, California. Her experiences with discrimination and racism by other students in her school encouraged her to change her last name to Tallchief, all one word. We made a conscious decision to name this issue Tallchief to reflect her choice, as well as to highlight innovations—both large and small—that Native people have implemented and continue to implement to survive their economic, political, and social conditions as individuals and as citizens of tribal nations.
While Tallchief does not fit the profile of being an orphan, she has interesting connections to orphans; perhaps the most obvious was that her cousin Pearl was an orphan. The reasons behind Pearl’s orphaned status involved unique historical circumstances on the Osage Nation in the early 1920’s. Pearl’s family had been murdered in an explosion at their home. The explosion had been premeditated by a white man who had married into Pearl’s family in hopes of gaining land and resources, primarily in the form of oil loyalty “headrights.” This was not an isolated incident, but a series of planned attacks perpetuated by white male opportunists. Dubbed the “Reign of Terror,” these approximately 60 murders rendered many Osage children orphans—some of these children were even targets of the attacks.
The historical conditions that instigated the “Reign of Terror” on the Osage Nation involve forced removal and relocation and allotment policies. The Osage are not traditionally from Oklahoma, but migrated westward from as far east as what is now Virginia. Earlier migrations are attributed to conflicts with other Native tribes; however, the Osage were removed to Indian Territory—present-day Oklahoma—after a series of treaties with the United States Government throughout the nineteenth century. Allotment policies also exacerbated this situation, because these policies required Osage people to divide their communal land base into tracts of land to be parceled out to individual Osage citizens. Individual ownership practices and guardianship laws, which forced many Osage people to have non-Indian businessmen handle their financial affairs, made it easier for white male opportunists to prey upon Osage people.
Forced removal, relocation, and allotment policies are not specific to Osage peoples, but are familiar to many Native peoples and tribes. U.S. Government-mandated displacement from traditional and sacred homelands is common amongst Native tribes; perhaps the most well-known to mainstream society being the “Trail of Tears.” Creation and emergence stories of distinct groups of Native peoples often indicate strong ties to land. Additionally, contemporary and traditional tribal teachings tell us how to be responsible to and cultivate relationships with people, other beings, and one’s homelands. Given this relationship to traditional lands and sacred sites and subsequent displacement from them, it can be said that Native people have been orphaned, not necessarily from our parents or families, but from our homelands.
These diasporic conditions are the reality for many Native people, and perhaps even doubly so for those of us who reside away from reservations and in urban areas. Large metropolitan areas like Chicago possess very complex histories of displacement of Native people, especially given relocation and termination policies in the 1950’s. Implementation of these policies via work programs relocated Native people from their relatively isolated communities to urban areas for employment. The expectation was that assimilation of Native people into mainstream society would accelerate as a result of these work programs. Assimilationist goals were not necessarily achieved, especially in the Chicago area.
While Native people from various tribes were sent to urban hubs to discard their tribal identities, individual Native people and unified groups of Native folks implemented innovative survival strategies to maintain their cultural values and to transform what it means to be Indian, pioneering an urban Indian identity. Native people in Chicago gravitated toward each other with common goals of creating spaces to be Indian and challenging discriminatory federal policies and practices directed at them. Native leaders recognized the importance of expressing different ways of being agents of change to better the Chicago Indian community, whether it was through community action and organizing, through challenging policies from within the system, through varying degrees of active and passive resistance, or even through mere expression of Indian identity in ways that challenged mainstream perceptions. This legacy of Indian elders and leaders is felt strongly today by the Chicago Indian community, as is apparent through Dr. Dorene Wiese’s “Our Beautiful Chicago Indian Elders.”
Like the metamorphosis of identity that occurred in the relocation from reservation life to urban areas, Native people today are transforming not only what it means to be citizens of our own tribal nations or what it means to be Indian, but we are also leading conversations and asking questions about what it means to navigate different identities and roles we assume as human beings in an increasingly globalized world. This was evident in the wide range of submissions that we received from Native writers for this issue, and it will hopefully be apparent in the works that we have selected for publication.
Whether you want to explore “ROOM 237” with Ramona Emerson, get lost in “The Woods Behind” with Marek Jones, journey a “Three Day Road” with Janet Rogers, or be one of Bill Wetzel’s “Strange Bedfellows,” we hope that your perceptions of American Indian writers and writing—and maybe even of American Indian peoples, communities, and cultures—will be challenged, expanded, and nurtured in ways you never imagined. We hope you enjoy this issue as much as we have enjoyed working with our contributors and staff members to bring it to life.
Ahéhee’,
Ashley Tsosie-Mahieu
Guest Editor
***I would be remiss not to mention the ongoing Baby Veronica case and the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) in a discussion of Native orphans. However, I have rambled on far too long about other things to do any justice to this issue. There is plenty of great writing about the Baby Veronica case available on the Interwebs. And, generally, I feel that most Native people who are up on their current events are well informed of this issue. For those who do not know about the Baby Veronica case and/or ICWA, I encourage you to do a little research. This contemporary case will influence Indian policy in the future.
Ashley Tsosie-Mahieu is a citizen of the Navajo Nation. She is Honágháahnii (One Who Walks Around Clan) born for biligáana (White Man). Her maternal grandfather is Ashiihi (Salt Clan) and her paternal grandfather is biligáana (White Man). Ashley is a Ph.D. Student in the American Indian Studies Program with a concentration in American Indian Education and is working toward a Certification in Higher Education at the University of Arizona. She holds a Master’s of Education degree in Educational Policy Studies with a minor in American Indian Studies and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Comparative and World Literature from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Ashley has had two short works of fiction published in RED INK: A Native American Student Publication: “Generational Gap” and “Walk in Beauty.” Both stories embody modern day ceremonies and the individual healing processes of their female protagonists. Ashley’s academic and creative work is greatly influenced by her experiences as a Navajo woman who has had to—and still continues to—negotiate between different and conflicting cultural spaces and identities.
When she doesn’t have her serious face on, you can probably find her playing softball with her co-ed team the Chuckwallas, participating in long-distance running competitions (even though she has old lady knees), or out at a local Tucson bar out-drinking Bill Wetzel and waxing philosophical about the Insane Clown Posse and other such minutiae with other scholars and writers. She also really, really, really likes belugas and seahorses. She often has trouble convincing people that she’s an adult.
Nike Sneakers Store | Raekwon Packer Diadora Built 4 Cuban Linx – Packer and Diadora Releasing The N.9002 Molveno
